Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely has praised the Island’s NHS and care home staff in parliament and has highlighted the need for more financial support for local NHS services – part of his ‘Island Deal’.
During a health debate on Wednesday (24th June), Bob highlighted the work undertaken by the Isle of Wight NHS Trust throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.
In parliament Bob said:
“I thank NHS staff on the Isle of Wight for the remarkable work they have done, and I thank the leadership team under Maggie, Darren and Vaughan for the work they have done to reconfigure St Mary’s Hospital incredibly quickly.”
Bob went on to praise care home staff who he said had been extraordinarily diligent and highlighted the importance of frequent staff testing in care homes.
Continuing his campaign for an Island Deal, Bob raised points about the fragility of health services in unavoidably small hospitals – of which St Mary’s is one – and the significant additional pressures they face. He said:
“We put the additional extra costs of running an unavoidably small hospital on an island at about £12 million a year.
“The NHS long-term plan sets out a 10-year strategy and it says it is unable to find evidence of specific unavoidable costs, but I beg to differ. I think we have evidence of what those unavoidable costs are, both generally in terms of unavoidably small hospitals, but also specifically in the case of the Isle of Wight.
Article continues below this advertisement “We have specifically listed and itemised those additional expenditures when compared to a hospital that has a more average size population. As the Minister knows, St Mary’s is about half that of a normal district general hospital.”
Speaking after the debate Bob said:
“I want to ensure that our NHS workers here receive all the support they need, not only to continue their excellent work, but also to be pioneers. I will continue to push the Government on additional support for our IW NHS services.”
During the debate Bob also publicly thanked Islanders for using the NHS Covid-19 app and said he would continue to push for the Island to take part in future pilot schemes.
What about anti body testing for care home staff it still has not happened!
But he forgot to vote for NHS and care staff to be regularly tested, in fact he voted against it. Hypocrite.
Maybe if the tories didn’t close Ryde Hospital, Frank James Hospital and Shanklin Cottage Hospital our NHS staff and care staff wouldn’t have been put in the situation they faced. So I find it hard to take from a tory thanking the NHS, all the staff work very hard, but look to the past and see why this happened.
Jumping on the band wagon of praising Hospital staff, care home staff and carers.
Where were you when they needed PPE and testing?
That question i can’t answer for you as i didn’t start to hear anything from you until this world breaking NHS app was going to be trialled on the Isle of Wight.